---
[Exterior: The Shattered Ring — what was once the orbiting archive of the Skyborne Heirloom Council. Now fractured. The skies churn purple-black, memory-storms sweeping across floating cities. Time folds. Names vanish. People forget who they were mid-sentence.]
[Interior: Starwake — the command deck. Sylrae stands at the center, flanked by old enemies and newer allies. Thane sits slumped, recovering from the seal's shock. The room is silent until a screen flares to life.]
Sylrae (quietly):
"Begin the transmission."
---
[Transmission goes live — across pirate bands, remnant citadels, Zephyrite trade-nodes, Aetherian monasteries.]
Sylrae (projected, firm):
> "You know my face. You know my ship. Some of you fought beside me. Some of you hunted me. None of that matters now.
The Bound are no longer locked in vaults or myths. They are here. In our skies. In our minds.
If you felt your name tremble in your own mouth today… you already know this is true."
[She glances at Thane, then to the empty co-chair Kaelen once occupied.]
> "Kaelen Vire broke the Sixth Seal to buy us time. But time isn't mercy—it's a challenge.
We must choose: scatter and be rewritten… or rise as something new."
Corsair Admiral Drez (off-screen, grizzled):
> "You expect us to follow a ghost and a rebel?"
Sylrae (with venom):
> "No. I expect you to listen. For once.
The old world gave us floating thrones and skyborn bloodlines. They failed.
I offer you fire. I offer you teeth. I offer you one last skyborn oath.
Fly with me—not to protect what was, but to defy what's coming."
---
[The signal cuts. Silence again on the deck.]
Thane (softly):
"They're listening."
Sylrae (turning away):
"Good. Because soon, we won't have a sky to speak from."
---
[Meanwhile, deep in the Boundspace—a shapeless Kaelen stands in a hall of mirrors. Each mirror shows a different version of himself. One turns to look.]
Bound-Kaelen:
"You were always meant to become us."
Kaelen (grinning):
"Then maybe I'll teach you how to lie."
---
End of Chapter Seventeen